164 The Bank Field Experiment. 



about 3 tons an acre — ^I adopted the following treatment 

 in order to lessen the hay crop, and so favour the subse- 

 quent pasture. After harvest, and rolling the field, it 

 was stocked for five weeks with 4 hoggs an acre and 

 11 calves for the entire field, and from the first week in 

 April to May 20th with never less than 2 ewes and twin 

 lambs per acre, and often 3 ewes and twins. The field 

 was then shut up for hay, which is estimated at about 



2 tons an acre, and would have been certainly much 

 more had it not been for a drought so severe that sheep 

 absolutely refused to go up to the top of one of our hills, 

 while the tails of the peacocks have fallen out far earlier 

 than usual. In the hay there is very little chicory, and 

 hardly any seeding stems, and, as the chicory is composed 

 almost entirely of young leaves, it is thought that it will 

 not cause the hay to be dusty, which is the great evil 

 arising from fully developed chicory when used for hay. 

 The produce from the coarse grasses is as fine as could 

 possibly be desired. In the judgment of a visitor, whose 

 opinion is to be valued, it would be impossible to produce 

 a finer sample of hay. With the exception of about 



3 acres, only once manured with dung about six years 

 ago, the field has never been manured since 1887, in the 

 ordinary sense of the word ; and yet, from the colour and 

 luxuriance of the clover and kidney vetch, the agricul- 

 turists who saw the field thought it had been dressed 

 with nitrates — and so it had been most fully from the 

 atmosphere. The fact is that with our system no manure 

 is required over and above that supplied by a deeply- 

 rooted turf, the nitrogen collected from the atmosphere 

 by our abundant clover and kidney vetch, and the arti- 

 ficials used with tjhe turnip crops; and this has now 

 been amply proved by stock and crops all along the 

 line. In the case of last year's (1901) drought, when there 

 was such a general failure of grass, and especially of 

 clover, the Bank field had a most luxuriant appearance 

 all the season through, and the results clearly prove that, 

 with the aid of the new fanning system, the farmer may 



